CMAT and The Boomtown Rats are on ringing in the new duties on New Year's Eve as they join a star-studded Jools’ Annual Hootenanny line-up that also features Jade, Jungle, Kathy Sledge, Marc Almond, Paul Carrack, Ruby Turner, Toby Lee and Queen's Roger Taylor, more of whom anon. It's good to see Bob Geldof returning to his main occupation of making music.

There's been a pronounced Irish flavour to the current Later With Jools Holland run with Gurriers also getting to do their post-punk thing on the show recently. Asked how it all came about in this year's Hot Press Round Table Summit, Pierce from the band told us: "Bribery… No, we were playing in a pub at Other Voices. The guys from … Jools Holland were meant to have gone home but, for whatever reason, were still there and heard us soundcheck. They stayed and really enjoyed the gig, so we were on their radar."

Taking over, Charlie added: "We got a text from them about a week beforehand so we didn’t have much time to get nervous. The weirdest bit was picking a good spot next to Jools to watch the other bands and this old lad walking over and planting himself between us. I looked down and he was wearing arch support cheetah print shoes. I was like, 'I love your shoes!' He said 'thank you', looked me in the eye and I realised it was Roger Taylor. You’re stood there shooting the breeze with the guy who played drums on ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and thinking, 'How the fuck is this happening!?'”

Sadly, the Jools crew won't be reuniting Gurriers with their new bezzie, Roger, on New Year's Eve but it still promises to be a stormer of a show!

Meanwhile, more words of wisdom from Gurriers are to be found at https://www.hotpress.com/music/hot-press-christmas-summit-lyra-the-mary-wallopers-curtisy-gurriers-and-hotgirl-reflect-on-2024-23063358 which is a Christmas cracker of a long read!